Like many challenges, on Tik Tok, this one is no exception by its dangerousness. Several head injuries, children in the hospital with broken bones… this so-called “game” still reaches the peak of stupidity and nastiness. A way for adolescents to shine on the social network, which can have serious consequences.

Since 2020, the challenge of the skull breaker, in French: the challenge of cranium breaking, has been wreaking havoc among adolescents.

This deadly game is to make a person jump as high as possible. Two accomplices then surround this one and make a crooked paws when the jumper is still in the air.

Needless to say that the one who jumps, without being warned beforehand, of course, finds himself thrown violently to the ground with all his weight, without the possibility of absorbing his fall with his knees or his hands, since the objective is to do so. fall back. It is therefore the head, shoulders, tailbone or back that cushion the fall.

As humans are not designed to fall backwards, the toll is often heavy and emergency hospitalization is necessary for symptoms, following the fall, of:

• јак бол;
• повраћање;
• несвестица;
• вртоглавица.

The authorities are trying to warn adolescents and their parents of the risks that such a fall engenders.

According to the Charente-Maritime gendarmerie, falling on the back without being able to protect the head can go so far as to put the person “in danger of death”.

When a child is rollerblading or cycling, they are asked to wear a helmet. This dangerous challenge can have the same consequences. Because following the symptoms presented by the victims the consequences are often heavy and can lead to paralysis or death:

• concussion ;
• skull fracture ;
• wrist fracture, elbow.

Head trauma must be treated urgently by a neurosurgery service. As a first step, the patient must be woken up regularly to detect a hematoma.

In an emergency, the surgeon may decide to make a temporal hole. This helps to decompress the brain. The patient will then be transferred to a specialized environment.

Head trauma patients can retain sequelae, particularly in their movements or memorization of language. To regain all their faculties, it is sometimes necessary for them to be accompanied in an appropriate rehabilitation center. The recovery of all their faculties, both physical and motor, is not always 100%.

The daily 20 Minutes published the testimony of a young girl of only 16, victim of the challenge in Switzerland. Orchestrated by two comrades and without being warned, she had to be hospitalized following headaches and nausea, a violent fall which caused a concussion.

These dangerous challenges attract adolescents in the midst of an existential crisis. You have to be “popular”, to be seen, to test the limits… And unfortunately these challenges are widely viewed. The hashtag #SkullBreakerChallenge has been viewed over 6 million times, according to the BFMTV newspaper.

Much to the despair of the authorities and the Ministry of National Education, which invites teachers to be vigilant in the playgrounds and to sanction. “It is an endangerment of others”.

The reputation of these challenges is well established. Last year, the “In my feeling challenge” made young people dance outside moving cars.

The Tik Tok app attempted to curb the phenomenon by issuing a warning to users. The message explains its desire to promote “fun and safety” and thus flag “dangerous trend” content. But where are the limits? Are the millions of users, mostly very young, able to differentiate cool and harmless games from a narcissistic and dangerous challenge. Apparently not.

These challenges, compared by the authorities to a real scourge, strike more and more adolescents from year to year:

• the water challenge, the victim receives a bucket of ice-cold or boiling water;
• the condom challenge which consists of inhaling a condom through your nose and spitting it out through your mouth, which can cause choking;
• neknomination who asks to nominate someone on video to drink a very strong alcohol dry ass, several deaths, following this challenge;
• and many others, etc.

The authorities and the Ministry of Education call on all witnesses to these dangerous scenes to alert the adults around them, as well as the police, so that these distressing challenges, which put the lives of others in danger, cease. to be practiced with impunity.